Reading time:

5 minutes

Word count:

967

This is a disturbing post for me, and probably for you.  I am an IT contractor in 2013, at least. It was not always that way, because I worked in long term permanent positions before now. I have said many times before I did not aim to be an IT contractor: it just fell in […]

Reading time:

5 minutes

Word count:

962

Here is a review of Arquillian Testing Guide by John D. Ament published by Packt Publishing. Before I give my opinion of his book, let me first make a disclaimer. I am also a Packt Pub author. I am the author of the up and coming Java EE 7 Developer Handbook (September 2013). Mr Ament […]

Reading time:

1 minute

Word count:

224

#DontFallForThisOne This arrived is my Gmail inbox this afternoon. I had heard that some people were getting these mails; but I didn’t believe them until now. charles <charlesbrown486@yahoo.co.uk> 14:36 (22 minutes ago) to me Hi As a result your application, I would like to invite you to attend an interview. You will have an interview […]

Reading time:

2 minutes

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284

It’s time to release that Java EE 7 cat out of the bag.  I’m very excited about delivering this first technical book. I have the pleasure of announcing that the great Markus Eisele has agreed to write the foreword to my forthcoming book: Java EE 7 Developer Handbook from Packt Pub. Markus Eisele is an […]

Reading time:

3 minutes

Word count:

643

The last day of the Round-Up, which was a bit sad. The day began with a bang with a nice session hosted by Julie Pitt titled “Scaling Scala”. Daniel also co-hosted this session with suggestion on topic to cover the popular Scala libraries: Play and Akka. This content has a lot of good ideas about […]

Reading time:

3 minutes

Word count:

527

Tuesday, 26th February, 2013, the day one of the Round-Up. The shenanigans of United were left behind. Today was a fresh start, a time that duly manipulated into a recharge. I was exhausted, the others had gone ahead to Rumours for initial Round-Up coffee, then they walked a short distance to the Parish Hall. The […]

Reading time:

12 minutes

Word count:

2541

On Saturday, 23rd February 2013, South London, early in the morning, having packed my snowboard and a small Samsonite grey suite case overnight, I got up, trying my best not to disturb my partner. I was on my way to London Heathrow. The morning Sun sternly pushed its sunlight through seeming impenetrable clouds in to […]

Reading time:

6 minutes

Word count:

1146

It is a simple question. So why don’t you get more training? Do you feel that you operate already effectively? Is there no more stuff to learn? Do you think that you are already “good”? Sometimes,  just when we are walking about and we feel everything is going smoothly, then the bottom drops out of […]

Reading time:

13 minutes

Word count:

2748

I have taken a step back in an attempt to put the year 2012 in focus. As always, it started with great hopes and there were highs and it seemed for a moment, that working life was back on track, but lurking in the background was an impending disaster. The problems were not fixed, I […]

Reading time:

6 minutes

Word count:

1138

This is a warning to the reader; your might feel at the end of this entry that it is all Dickens’s Christmas Carol and “Bah! Humbug!”. You would be rightfully semi-accurate in your analysis, of course. Quite simply, I hate when I go to an interview that is either face-to-face with a potential employer, or […]

Reading time:

10 minutes

Word count:

2153

This is a post for new developers, young, inexperienced or old and retraining into information technology. Recently, I had a discussion with many engineers at one of those many London user group nights about how there is so much new stuff that we have to explain to people new to programming. One person had to […]

Reading time:

2 minutes

Word count:

401

On Monday evening, 3rd December, 2012, I went along to the British Computer Society London in the Strand for a lecture from non other than Professor Sir Tony Hoare. It is not everyday you get meet a personality who has been so well deserved lauded in the computer science, in its history and its modernity and  brief time […]